There is a widely used system that uses an image shooting device such as an endoscope or a microscope to capture an image of a surgical site of a patient, and allows a surgeon to perform an operation while observing the captured image of the surgical site. The system transmits information on the image captured by the image shooting device to a processor (video processor) that performs display control of the image, and causes the video processor to display the image on a display device such as a monitor in an operating room.
The image shooting device and the video processor being for medical use, the situation has to be avoided in which the communication becomes unstable between the image shooting device and the video processor, and the image is distorted during an operation. This is because a serious accident can happen if a distorted image or a disrupted image causes an operation to stop. Stronger stability is therefore requested of the communication between the image shooting device and the video processor in an operating room.
For example, there is proposed a system that connects an endoscope to a video processor through wireless communication. As a method for more stably performing communication between the endoscope and the video processor in the system, it is possible to devise the disposition of the transmitting antenna in the endoscope. There, however, are a large number of people and objects such as a medical staff and medical devices in an operating room. If these people and objects enter the communication path between the endoscope and the video processor, the radio waves can be blocked and the normal communication can be interrupted between the endoscope and the video processor. Even if the disposition of the transmitting antenna is devised in the endoscope, it is difficult to completely prevent such people and objects in the operating room from blocking the communication. The stable communication is not always ensured.
Meanwhile, although not for medical use, the technique described, for example, in Patent Literature 1 is proposed as a technique of more generally strengthening the communication stability of wireless communication. Patent Literature 1 discloses the technique that in a system in which, in a case where a mobile station detects interference information greater than or equal to predetermined reception electric field intensity, a call channel switching request is transmitted to a wireless base station, and the wireless base station transmits an instruction of a new call channel to the mobile station in response to the switching request, the switching request and the instruction of the new call channel are transmitted and received in another frequency band different from that of the call channel. Applying the technique to the communication between the image shooting device and the video processor in an operating room can make the communication more stable.